[Birdtalk] thistle seed socks

[Jim & Beanie]

Call me scrouge, but I won't feed thistle because it is expensive.  I feed black sunflower and white millet. 
The Juncos and House Sparrows go for the millet first.  

Today, we had Pine Siskins, Goldfinches, and Cassin's finches on the feeder besides the usual crowd of House finches, RW Blackbirds, and HOSP. 

Interesting about your Juncos.  I think birds need to learn sometimes where the goodies are.    When I first hung out a suet cage, it hung there for two months and nothing looked at it.   I took it down and gave it to my daughter.  The next year I tried again and first a Downey Woodpecker found it, then the chickadees. Next thing I knew I had Juncos, House Finches, Magpies, Flickers, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, RW Blackbirds, and  Starlings all eating suet.   That Downey must have put it in the paper. 

Jim


 From: Linda s Butler 
  To: scoleman at utah.gov 
  Cc: birdtalk at utahbirds.org 
  Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 10:07 AM
  Subject: Re: [Birdtalk] thistle seed socks


  I keep sewing up the holes in my older thistle socks. I wish I could find the mesh fabric and just sew them, they'd be simple to make.
  Lots of larger finches will take the thistle seed from the socks. I have a large sock and sometimes it's covered with finches, but most of the time it isn't. They also tend to ignore a nice wooden feeder that has little slits for the thistle seed. I like the socks. They're not so hard on the noggin when I forget to duck!
  I've had lots of juncos come and eat the black oil sunflower seed I put in house-shaped feeders. I noticed that a lot of birds will rummage through the mixed seed and toss out the millet and little round red seeds (nobody seems to like those) and eat just the black sunflower seeds. So I caved in and buy large sacks of the black oil. But I'd have to say the most popular "food" around here is the niger thistle.
  Linda

  On Mon, 26 Mar 2007 09:04:00 -0600 "Steve Coleman" <scoleman at utah.gov> writes:
    I got three new socks at the Wild Bird Center in Layton last fall, they have been up all winter and I have had more Goldfinches this year than ever before and they are still coming. Interestingly the Juncos fed on them all winter too, while I have always had a lot of Juncos they have always fed on the ground this was the fist time I had them go to feeders. The mesh on these socks is actually bigger than the ones that I replaced that I bought two years ago.

    Steve

    >>> <Roostertael at aol.com> 3/26/2007 8:50 AM >>>

    Hi,

    If anyone else is wondering why you don't have many goldfinches, and you are using the newer long socks with the American Goldfinch or the flower printed on them, the birds have trouble getting the seeds out. I dug out a couple of old long socks that have a little larger mesh and material that will stretch and got the finches back. In fact I still have a dozen lesser and about thirty American Goldfinches. Lots for this late in the year. The American Goldfinches like sunflower chips, and that is what kept them here until I put the old socks out. Maybe advice for next year. 

    Jack Binch






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